Afghan refugee shooting: This deal with Turkey is mere wishful thinking by Brussels

The shooting dead of an Afghan asylum seeker on the Bulgarian border is the first such fatality since the refugee crisis began. It is unlikely to be the last. The stresses of this unprecedented influx are being felt right across Europe. Germany has responded to the crisis with unprecedented generosity, accepting 280,000 people in September alone, which was the total for the whole of 2014. But even the most compassionate chancellor will be casting around for ways to slow or halt the flow.

Unfortunately the draft agreement with Turkey, offering €3 billion in extra aid, visa-free access for Turks to the Schengen area and promising to “re-energise” Turkey’s long-stagnant application for EU membership, is very unlikely to do the trick.

Media reports speak of securing “Ankara’s help in staunching the flow of migrants”, but as Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioglu was frank enough to admit yesterday [Friday], the impression that Turkey will keep refugees in Turkey in exchange for funds is a delusion. And the initiatives promised by Europe in return, especially the “re-energising” of accession talks, look equally fragile, given the resistance in several EU countries to the unrestricted arrival of Turkish citizens.

Turkey has already received two million migrants, most of them refugees from Syria: as the common border is long and porous, stopping the flow is out of the question. Turkey, like Jordan and Lebanon, has responded to the crisis with compassion and empathy. “It’s one of the most humanitarian responses I’ve seen anywhere,” a worker with the Mercy Corps aid agency told Reuters. “There is an acceptance that, however inconvenient, Turkey must help its neighbour.”

But that does not mean Turkey has any serious interest in preventing those who want to go from leaving. Their presence in such huge numbers is already causing political friction ahead of the general election next month: a proposal to allow the refugees to work has been shelved due to popular hostility to the idea, at a time when both the economy and the ruling Justice and Development Party are in trouble. If people want to risk their lives crossing over to Europe, a large and increasingly well-oiled smuggling network allows them to do just that.

At present there is practically nothing to stop them: patrolling of the narrow channel separating Turkey and Greece, either by Turkey or Europe’s hopeless Frontex agency, is practically non-existent. One might consider it a good idea for both Turkey and the EU to adopt a more robust approach to policing the maritime frontier, but neither has an appetite for the tough policies it would require.

So whatever agreement is or is not signed with Ankara – Chancellor Merkel visits the Turkish capital tomorrow [Sunday] to try to pin the Turkish government down – it is a racing certainty that hundreds of overloaded rubber boats will continue to bump across the surf in Lesbos and Kos with their cargoes of old people in wheelchairs and young couples with babies and all the rest, all desperate to leave behind “the mouth of the shark” that their homes have become, whether in Syria or elsewhere.

In the absence of a serious commitment to staunch the migrant flow, the draft agreement with Turkey is simply more Euro moonshine, wishful thinking on both sides, offering Ankara concessions Europe has no wish to make in return for actions Turkey has no intention of taking. Far better to accept that the flows will continue, to ensure that those who are fleeing war and persecution are welcomed with all the generosity and efficiency Europe can muster, while efficiently sending those without a legitimate claim back where they came from.